VSE Annual Conference 2017 started today

Victim Support Europe’s president João Lázaro gave welcome speech on today’s opening of the 27th VSE annual conference in the beautiful 300 year old Royal Hospital in Kilmainham, Dublin.

Opening speech was given by Frances FitzgeraldTD Tánaiste and Minister for Justice & Equality of Ireland. Her word were encouraging, inspiring and powerful to all.

Plenary session continued with interesting presentation of Karen Joyce-McMahon, Deputy Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation Office for Victim Assistance who gave an overview on how FBI Support victims of crime across borders.

Testimonies of victims of crime which followed were very emotional and at the same time motivated many of the present victim support workers to work harder and better in order to ensure support and assistance to all victims.

VSE annual conference team wishes to thank and congratulate victims of crime who had courage and will to share their experiences with us today.

Plenary panel 1 was concluded by Mark Castle from Victim Support England & Wales who gave a lecture about Cross-border victimisation and Supporting British victims abroad.

Time between two panels was reserved for workshops sessions and today on the schedule were workshop sessions A and B. Participants who attended the workshops had opportunity to listen very interesting presentations and learn about various themes related to victim support work like alternative sources of funding for victim support organisations, quality standards and data protection, trauma and implications for victim support, support for victims of terrorism, legislating for hate crimes, victims’ Directive from a prosecutorial perspective, psychological first aid- an evidenced based approach for assisting people post trauma and many others.

Afternoon plenary session continued with Panel 2 which was opened by Min-Pyo Park, Director General of Violent Crimes Department at Supreme Prosecutors’ Office of Republic of Korea who gave us presentation on Victim oriented criminal justice from Korean perspective. Here we found out that many of Korean practices are actually in full compliance with EU Victims’ Directive.

Panel continued with an overview of Victim policy of the Prosecution Service in the Netherlands, given by Jeroen Steenbrink, Deputy chief public prosecutor in the region North-Holland.

Interesting and detailed presentation of the free, amazing and comprehensive Vicarious Trauma Toolkit of US office for Victims of Crime, given by Allison Turkel, Deputy Director for the Federal, International, and Tribal Division at the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) within the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP) concluded the first day of the conference.

We are looking forward for the second day where we expect interesting and motivational presentations on Supporting vulnerable victims and helping them come forward & Supporting victims of terrorism, and over 20 amazing workshops on knowledge exchange, training, peer support, monitoring and psycho-social response after terrorist attacks.